[w]ho would have thought that when we took a punt in 2013 on programming our first ever festival of far-out feminist theatre – this was back when there was still some timidity around the word – that ‘Calm Down, Dear’ would one day be an unmissable feature of CPT’s annual programme?2
I am aware that not all theatre makers have responded to the global economic downturn in the same way, but activists have felt the need to protest against the legislation of more conservative governments as they have been elected in countries such as Italy, Finland, Latvia, Sweden, Romania, Australia and the US. Sarah French has observed,
[t]he growth in feminist independent performance during [2005–2015] can be viewed as a response to the increased presence of sexism in Australian society, in which feminist theatre-makers sought to critique public debates about gender roles and offer a counter-narrative to dominant discourses.
(French 2017: 5)
After what Elaine Aston has described as ‘feminism fatigue’ in the 1990s and early 2000s, the late 2000s to 2010s has seen a wide range of artists mounting critically lauded productions exploring interlocking oppressions of gender, race, class, disability and sexuality (Aston 2013: 24).
This project is the culmination of research undertaken, over the last ten years, into the recalibration of identity politics, feminism and gender studies in Western performance. It responds to a perceived tension between the now established discourses of performing failure, postmodern and intersectional feminism. The praxis of performing failure has come to exemplify postmodern and postdramatic performance and as a result can be seen to replicate postmodern theories of human subjectivity and agency. Postmodern gender theorists, most notably Judith Butler, reject essentialising subject categories, such as ‘man’ and ‘woman’, and champion incomplete, queer subjectivities that remain fluid and indeterminate. In contrast, many contemporary identity theorists such as Kay Inckle and Rebecca Reilly-Cooper writing in the area of feminism, trans* and disabled subjectivities find they are loath to renounced fixed identities and subject positions because, for better or worse, they inform the material experience of their day-to-day lives and provide a crucial concept around which to forge activist communities. The book is entitled Women in Performance: Repurposing Failure because it takes as its object of study the work of a number of female, trans* and non-binary artists who borrow techniques from the praxis of performing failure and adapt them to foster a sense of agency on stage. The idea of a subject with agency is at odds with the ‘post-humanist wave’ that Rosi Braidotti suggests ‘radicalises the premises of postmodernist feminism’ (Braidotti 2010: 178). My chosen artists are trans*, non-binary or women in the inclusive sense and are repurposing failure because they borrow recognised stylistic techniques from postmodern practice whilst strategically occupying a clearly defined subject position. Featured artists include Rachael Young (see cover photograph); Young Jean Lee; Lauren Barri Holstein; GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN; Selina Thompson; Bryony Kimmings; Project O; Lucy McCormick; Lucy Hutson; Kate Bornstein; Lois Weaver; Hester Chillingworth; Curious; Haranczak/Navarre; Bridget Christie; Lolly Adefope; Shazia Mirza; and Hannah Gadsby. Throughout the book I analyse challenging examples of work encouraging audiences to revisit hegemonic assumptions about identity and performance. Many of the performances, in so far as they push against notions of cultural propriety and behavioural constraint, may be regarded as controversial. Several examples are explicit and feature nudity, sex acts and swearing. If you are of a delicate disposition and likely to be offended by profanity and nudity then it may be a good idea to return this book to the shelf. The performances include moments of comedy and conversely critique and celebrate elements of Western popular culture. Some performances took place more recently than others and all provide the opportunity to engage imaginatively with gender politics and contemplate the tensions between those who theorise gender and those who interrogate it through performance. There have been crucial challenges to white feminism over the past 20 years and this project has given me the opportunity to consider how more recent strains of feminism have taken on board theories relating to race, queerness, intersectionality and trans* theory.3 The book draws from a wide range of disciplines: postmodernism; poststructuralism; intersectional feminism, white feminism, performance studies, Black feminism; scenography; queer studies; trans* studies; sociology; disability studies; and comedy studies. My aim has been to gather examples of performance demonstrating a preoccupation with gendered, racial, class and ethnic identity, although I recognise there are a great many artists whose work I have not been able to include and many subject positions unaddressed. The majority of artists identify as feminist, although some, such as Rachael Young, explicitly state that they choose not to because they consider feminism to refer to an exclusionary white feminism. Some of the artists, such as GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN and Selina Thompson, distance themselves from conventional models of feminism whilst acknowledging that it remains important and relevant. I perform discrete readings of the performances, but within each chapter I also work to identify overlapping themes and ideas. For example, in one chapter I analyse how three different artists transform theatre spaces into club-like environments; in another I analyse the different relationships four comedians have to anger and comedy personae. Many of the performances work to challenge a white supremacist, patriarchal hegemony and although many artists identify as subaltern or minoritarian, they often resist processes associated with labelling and objectification. The featured artists detail the manifold ways in which they are shaped by oppressive discourses and push back against racist, sexist, colour and gender blind practice.
For the last 25 years my research interests have been situated in the field of gender studies, feminism, feminist performance, postmodern performance and a poetics of failure. A tension exists between subjects and I have become increasingly fascinated by the contradictions implied by mapping identity politics on to the recently established discourse of performing failure. As intimated above, mapping identity on to postmodern theory and performance is problematic because the discourse of feminism relies on the sovereign concept of ‘woman’, considered by some problematically reductive, essentialist and fixed. Sara Ahmed has observed, ‘the model of feminism as humanist in practice and postmodern in theory is inadequate … feminist practice questions the humanist conception of the subject as self-identity’ (Ahmed 1996: 71). Andy Lavender has written of his sense that contemporary artists demonstrate ‘a new fascination with authenticity’, suggesting a move ‘beyond’ postmodernism into post-postmodernism (Lavender 2016: 23). In relation to centred or sovereign subjects he writes:
After decentring, we found ourselves diversely centred. To address a tense present: we are amid interdisciplinary cultural formations, interested in meaning, representation, utterance and content, but also mindful of display, surfaces, presentation. […] After the clarion calls of modernism, and the absences and ironies of postmodernism, come the nuanced and differential negotiations, participations and interventions of an age of engagement.
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Working along similar lines to Lavender and Ahmed, I aim to interrogate the work of artists who engage with humanist notions of...